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And now porn, from Visa!

IF IT’S not illegal, then it’s OK. That is the secular, moral relativist approach to life — which I am attacking in a television programme tomorrow evening. To take one example of where it leads, just look (if you can bear it) at a revolting website called lilamber.com, featuring underage girls in provocative poses.
This site, because its girls are scantily clad rather than naked, and are not shown as victims of obvious abuse, counts as soft rather than hardcore porn. It will thus not be covered by the Government’s commendable, if belated, planned legislation against extreme sexual content on the internet.

But lilamber is shameful none the less — and particularly to the supposedly respectable institutions, such as banks and credit card companies, that allow it to flourish by handling payments by its subscribers.

How would a senior manager at Visa react if his own darling daughter was one of the pouting pre-teens on lilamber? Or what would the boss of the internet service provider (ISP) who actually shoves lilamber’s sordid electrons on to the internet do if images of his precious poppet were featured there? They would react with horror. But these financial and IT services are what keep this billion-dollar industry going. Without any way of charging for access, or anyone willing to run their infrastructure, the vast majority of porn sites would go out of business.

The bankers mumble excuses about how they can’t blacklist clients who have a legal business. What nonsense. Financial institutions are all too keen to be choosy about their customers when it comes to creditworthiness or money-laundering — so why not apply the same “smell test” when child porn is involved? These outfits are merely echoing our culture’s mantra: the law is the only moral authority. No one else can sit in judgment. To censor even those sickos who sit at their desks and salivate over sexualised images of children is to be condemned as censorious. After all, in our relativist universe, one man’s pornography is another’s “adult entertainment”.

\"The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards - and even then I have my doubts\".....SpafEverytime I learn a new thing, I discover how ignorant I am.- ... Black Cluster

Heheh..."Without any way of charging for access, or anyone willing to run their infrastructure, the vast majority of porn sites would go out of business." How ridiculous. The porn industry wouldn't go out of business if credit cards stopped working with them, they would simply favor some other form of payment -- probably 900 numbers that charge the monthly fee as a connect, then give you a password. There are probably other ways, too.

In addition, while it's true that these credit companies have every right to refuse service to industries of pornography, in the end I imagine they realize they'd just be losing business. Financial service is a cutthroat business. They probably can't afford to eliminate any source of sales.

Yeah! SMS's can help them to get codes via MSGing a certain number .... but it won't be as popular as Visa ... since not all Mobile service operators would accpet such things ... the industry might get slammed down .... this will abolutely effect them but not to the point of getting bankrput or busted ... they really rely on credit card number to get money ...

\"The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards - and even then I have my doubts\".....SpafEverytime I learn a new thing, I discover how ignorant I am.- ... Black Cluster

Originally posted here by hesperus Just type lilamber into google images and you'll get the idea. No nudity, but lots of provocative preteens.

No complete nudity .... but it is well-known that molesters usually get affected or their reaction to semi-nude girls is fiercer .... these photos drive them crazy ....

I despice the way they abuse childhood .....

\"The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards - and even then I have my doubts\".....SpafEverytime I learn a new thing, I discover how ignorant I am.- ... Black Cluster

These sites exist on the fringes of the law. They can't be shut down on their own merits, although I have heard of cases where they have been shut down because of other things the people running them are involved in. If I remember right, some guy in the US was nabbed for child abuse (of the girl on the site) and possession of kiddy porn even though none of this type of material made it on to the site.

Having Visa and other card companies refuse to do business with these types of sites would make it much harder for them to exist, but as they say, they don't want to wade into the mire of judging the types of transactions that take place under their auspices. Not that they couldn't. Paypal is notorious for freezing accounts. I know someone who was selling opium poppy seeds and had his account frozen even though he was breaking no laws. You can go to a garden centre and find the same thing if you know what you are looking for.

This may be a little of topic, but here goes.

I think our attitudes towards childhood sexuality need major re-adjustment. We let our little girls look at and listen to all sorts of sh*t that encourages them to be sexaully expressive and yet see an attraction to as the ultimate in degeneracy. The urge to violate a child is despicable and should not be encouraged by any means, but there is nothing wrong with seeing beauty in the development and sexual awakening of a young girl. There is, of course, very little artistic or profound about these sites.

I am always struck by the disconnect between the two positions. Childhood sexuality is encouraged from one side and reviled from the other -- by the same people. It is a sort of schizophrenic mania that can't see what is at issue.

The problem is that these little girls don't know what they are getting into. They don't know what it means when they mouth the lyrics and wear the same clothes as Brittany Spears. The models don't know why their parents are making money off these sites and who the money is coming from. In both cases parents fail as parents.

This is not an excuse for child abuse, if I haven't already made that clear, but the other side of the issue is the overwhelming encouragement, or at least allowance, of childhood sexaulity by those who claim to protect it. The result is a real confusion about what children are. The confusion is shared by pedophiles and parents.

The problem with sites such as that is that they are completely legal. It's a complete gray area, since nudity alone is not pornographic, and the government has never been very specific about defining "pornography."

I mean, the very same types of images and nudity can be found in classical paintings, yet nobody has a problem with those, well, nobody important anyways.

And of course, let's say you are offended by those images, does that mean they should be illegal? What if I'm not offended? Who's on the moral high ground? Is there a moral high ground? Think about it.

As far as the credit card companies go, as long as there is no fraud, or illegal activities going on, they should service the businesses. The webmasters are breaking no laws.

If you believe that this is so wrong that it should be illegal, banned, whatever... there are ways to make it illegal. Write to congressmen, senators, or any government official who can introduce legislation. Get the word out.

Although, as a side note, pornography laws can vary greatly from one jusrisdiction to another. In some countries, models have to be 18, in others they have to be 16, and I'm sure there are other ages too. A website can be hosted from any country that has open internet access, and they only have to follow the laws of that country as far as I know.

I though of this discussion about LilAmber when he was talking about COPINE.

I reckoned it would have been 3-5 on COPINE. This is below what the police would take action for but possibly at worst at a level the police would take a little notice of.

3 was like children in a state of undress
4 was little clothing with provocative poses
5 was 4 with pictures concentrating on genital area.
6 was obviously sexual posing and nudity (getting into porn proper).

I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea.

So basically nasty though this site is the police probably wouldn't take much notice.

I've got some useful links to resources (UK law) I'll post them up if they're going to be useful.

There are many more sites like lilamber. Often named something like &lt;girls name&gt;-model.com or whatever. And often they have lots of banners to other, similar sites too. Some of those sites are pretty decent although others are nearly pornographic. As I heard it, in the past it was even worse with sites full hardcore childporn but fortunately many countries have taken actions against that and ISP's are doing their best to block those sites.
Some people are wondering about the excitement about those sites, though. I myself don't see much of a difference between a picture of lilamber or a picture of a kitten. Both cute, but nothing else. And if everyone had this viewpoint and just considered those pictures cute, those sites would be harmless. (And probably not very succesful.) But for whatever reason many people are associating those kinds of pictures with sex. And some get excited by it while others are turned off and are deeply insulted by it. If you think about it, those pictures have to be banned because people associate them with sex...

Well, as long as people do associate it with sex, I think it's a good idea to block those sites. But I also think it would help when people get more educated and just stop associating pictures of children with sex. Because in my opinion, any person who thinks about sex when he sees a picture of a half-dressed girl will need to have his head examined!